The One Cast Aside
by Love without expectation
Summary: She has read the romances/fairy tales where the hero and the heroine walk away into the sunset, leaving behind the other woman. The woman that the hero nearly marries but doesn't.She, Rose Weasley was about to be that woman? A Rose-Scorpius story!


Hi there! Do read and leave your reviews :) Just an idea I had, that turned out quite different from what I expected, oh well :)

**The One Cast Aside**

"Ugh, cocky bastard" Scorpius muttered under his breath tearing his eyes away from the instigator of the comment. Even at a distance he could see the arrogance oozing out of every pore of the smarmy git.

Rose giggled a little at this "You are calling someone else cocky?"

"I have changed" said Scorpius indignantly.

"You have" Rose said softly stealing a glance at him only to find him gazing absently at nothing in particular.

They walked around the grounds of the manor that they had hired for their wedding which was only two days away. They had ensured a neutral territory as the venue in the hope that neither the Weasleys nor the Malfoys feel uncomfortable. After all it was an age old rivalry that the couple was erasing with their union. However, the reason the future bride and groom were away from the marriage revelry and taking a quiet stroll was something else altogether.

The redhead stared at her companion with a hint of worry on her face. Her heart however was in turmoil. She had a horrible feeling about how he had been reacting since the arrival of one particular guest. She now regretted their plan to have the guests arrive early to avoid the hassle of transporting everybody to the far off destination on their wedding day.

The person in question was none other than her fiancé's ex-girlfriend Anna Smith. Rose was witness to the Anna-Scorpius three year relationship when all three were students at Hogwarts. It was a match made in heaven with pure blood extraordinaire Scorpius Malfoy and Slytherin princess Anna smith coming together in their fourth year. The relationship ended rather badly however, with Anna dumping Scorpius after cheating on him consistently with Lysander Scamander, who was Rose's boyfriend then.

The incident in their final year had led to Rose and Scorpius becoming closer. They had been good friends all along but their respective cheating partners got them together like nothing else could. They didn't date until two years after graduation from Hogwarts.

Now, two years of dating and with nine years of friendship before that, they had decided to take the plunge completely sure of their choice of life partner. The arrival of two guests, their respective ex-es, had created an inexplicable uneasiness in the couple.

Anna had not only arrived for the wedding earlier than expected but had also been trying to attain as much attention as possible from Scorpius. Rose on her part had not expected her to come, and had called her in an effort to put the past behind which she had been unwilling to do for a while. She didn't really care about Lysander cheating on her now. After all, they had been dating for only two months and she was over him soon enough. The only blow was to her self-esteem which she hoped she had regained in the five years since the incident. Anna was a different story, she was her best friend then, so the betrayal was unacceptable in many ways. The best friend who cheated on her other friend with her boyfriend, was complicated enough without the current complication of the cheated parties getting together.

She sighed, there was nothing that she could do if Anna worked her charm on Scorpius again. After all, Anna was Scorpius' first love and he had taken almost two years to completely get over her, if at all. Now that she had apologized rather tearfully and received a sort of acceptance from Scorpius, she was back to being her old appealing self, the poor little Rose Weasley didn't stand a chance.

Rose had watched carefully to see if she saw any difference in behavior from Scorpius and was rather disheartened to note that he seemed more agitated than usual. He seemed to be lost in thought most times, in complete contrast to his excitement after his proposal and while arranging for the wedding in spite of a busy schedule. The change had been since the arrival of his ex-flame and he had not even talked to Rose about his worries like he normally did.

As a Weasley she knew, she had to be stronger, if her wedding didn't take place, she would have to face a world that would mock her for even imagining she stood a chance with Scorpius. She would have to face her family whom she had coerced into accepting a Malfoy into the family. However, none of this mattered to her as much as the thought of losing Scorpius.

They had been friends for so long that she didn't really remember a time when he wasn't around her. The two years when they had been in a relationship had been the most brilliant phase of her life. She had really fallen hard and imagining a life without him seemed impossible.

Then again, she had read the fairy tales, the romance novels and even watched some romantic muggle movies , they all indicated only one thing. She was the other woman, Scorpius and Anna were always considered perfect for each other, they had a break up, she was the one who had come later. She would be the one to be cast aside, like in those endless books and movies. The other girl nobody sheds a tear about, when the heroine comes to stop the marriage of the hero to her. Everybody cheers when the hero and heroine reunites while the other girl is spared no thought for her heartbreak.

If that happened at her wedding, she would be that girl and it would no more be her wedding. She felt an overwhelming urge to cry, something she rarely did, but now seemed like the right moment.

"Scorp" She sought his attention in a trembling voice.

He looked at her in panic. She flinched.

"I love you" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

He smiled brightly which caused her heart to lighten just a bit, but the moment was gone the minute his features hardened.

"But?" He asked taking a step towards her.

"eh?" she looked at him confused.

"But you think we shouldn't get married?" He asked taking another step towards her leaving very little distance between them.

"yeah" She said a stray tear making its way out of the corner of her eyes. If he wanted her to be the one to make the decision for him, she would do it, for him. She found her tear being wiped away by trembling hands that belonged to him.

"Why Rose? We are so good together, you and I" His voice was hoarse and his palms were now cupping her face.

She stared at him slightly startled, why was he making it look like she wanted this break-up?

"I love you Rose, I can't imagine a life without you" He said with endearing sincerity. She stared back at him with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, that didn't sound like he wanted to break up with her.

"Then…Then…." She stammered. Could she dare to hope? Did he mean that he didn't want to lose her as a friend?

"Do you really want to break-up?" He asked staring deeply into her blue eyes.

"No" She said in a small voice. Her voice chords did seem to be acting on their own accord, all she did was stare at his grey eyes that were swirling with emotions. Her answer resulted in a new emotion, hope, she noticed, had made way into his eyes.

"Then why?" He asked with growing intensity, "Do You still love him?"

She looked at him blankly, her ability to speak lost temporarily, "him?" she asked regaining her voice and confusion in the same stroke.

His eyes narrowed and his face twisted into an expression of smelling something unpleasant as he spat out the word "Scamander"

She considered him for a moment and involuntarily let out a giggle. She stopped the minute she found a look of hurt crossing his face.

"Lysander?" She asked "Whats he got to do with anything!"

Now it was his turn to gape at her in utter confusion. "So then why did you want to break up" He managed to ask.

"I didn't" She narrowed her eyebrows, looking at him with her fiercest expression "I thought you want to cast me aside for Anna"

"What" he yelped. "Why would I even think of her, when I have you?" He covered the little distance between them and kissed her passionately. Her mind unable to process their conversation after a moment decided to participate in the kiss instead of wasting time on unnecessary thoughts.

After a few moments, they broke apart and looked at each other. Both broke into identical smiles of happiness as they realized, they were both worrying about the other with no valid reason.

He offered his hand, she promptly looped her hand in his as they continued to walk, now with happier thoughts.

"So you thought I was going to leave you for Anna?" He smirked for the first time that day.

She smiled.

"yeah, but at least that is more believable than me leaving you for Lysander" She scoffed.

"I don't know" He said seriously "I always think you are too good for me"

She placed her head on his shoulder "And I fear, you would one day realize I'm not good enough for you"

"Never" He pulled her into a warm embrace. He stroked her hair as he said "You are just what I want Rose, you are brilliant, kind, smart, caring, but that's not the best part about you, its that you are human, you make mistakes, you get insecure, you lose hope sometimes, yet you would do anything to make those you love happy. I being privileged enough to be loved by you, would never want to ever lose you"

She smiled through the tears that were making way across her cheek.

"I love you Scorpius"

He smiled and took a step back to look at her face. Then rather dramatically he fake pouted as he asked "What? No declarations from your end?"

She threw her head back and laughed, the sunlight created a rather magnificent effect on her red hair. He watched her mesmerized. It is not often that they saw each other in such a light(literally and figuratively), so he felt tongue tied as he stared at her. He was glad that he would be the one who gets to hold her hand for as long as he lived. He grinned rather stupidly at the thought.

"So? I'm not going to be the one cast aside" She asked with easy gaiety suddenly the whole angst she went through seemed pointless.

"Why do you say cast aside?" He asked with interest. When she explained her reason replete with muggle movie references, he had doubled over with laughter, clutching onto his stomach.

"Well you didn't think it so funny when you thought I wanted to break up with you for that Prat Lysander"

This shut him up effectively.

"He was your first crush wasn't he, If the remember right you crushed on for two years before you went out with him?" He replied rather seriously.

She looked uncomfortable "Well I did crush on him for a while but he wasn't my first crush" she said softly, looking down at her feet. She missed the look of surprise that was evident on his face.

"Oh? And who was your first crush" he asked with interest.

"you"

"What?" The shock of the statement was such that he even forgot to smirk.

"Err I had a crush on you in the third year until at least the fifth year, I didn't tell you then because I didn't want to lose you as a friend and later quashed it because you were dating my best friend"

He regarded her for a moment, letting the declaration sink in, after which he made a decision to make a few confessions of his own.

"Well…you were my first crush as well" He said studying her averted face for a reaction.

As expected she gasped and eyed him critically "You are kidding"

"No" He said smiling, "Third year, potions lesson, you were late for class and I was waiting for you and constantly looking at the door, you came in and I felt my heart doing a few flips, I crushed on you quite desperately, your cousins noticed and warned me with dire consequences. I sort of first agreed to date Anna to get you off my mind"

"What?" She screeched. "How is it that we are always talking and discuss everything yet we've so many revealations today?" She poked her index finger in his chest demanding a decent explanation.

He caught her finger lightly "I didn't want you to know what a loser I was, to think of my well being and not even give us a try. Also I did really like Anna after a few dates, I was enamored by her."

"I didn't tell you because I lost a lot of confidence when Lysander dumped me. He had asked me out when he was hooking up with Anna" she shuddered slightly "I was naïve enough to fall for his charm"

"I hated all blokes then" she continued. Scorpius tried to say something but she shook her head "Except the blokes in my family and you"

He remained silent waiting for further explanation.

"Your girl friend had cheated on you" she sighed "So I felt a kinship with you."

He nodded his head glumly.

"Well the point is, I fell quite deeply in love with you eventually, so none of that matters" She smiled brightly causing the ends of his lips to tug up into a smile.

"I fell for you almost immediately after she dumped me" He confessed, after all it was a day of confessions, some of those thoughts that were buried deep in their hearts were out in the open today.

She drew a sharp breath. That was something she had no idea about.

"I didn't tell you because it was confusing even to me. I was serious about Anna, then she left, we were closer than ever Rose and I felt myself drawn to you, it was like the third year all over again. I told myself, I was just on rebound. I didn't want to hurt you so I tried to deal with it. I couldn't. I thought we would be busy what with my auror training and your healer training. What I didn't know was that the lesser the time I got to spend with you the more I wanted to. I had fallen in love with you much before I confessed to you"

She stared at him spell bound. Of course she knew he loved her, it was just the insecurities in her playing field earlier, but his current declaration left her in no doubt about their relationship. She was being stupid she realized.

"I love you Auror Malfoy" She said only half in jest.

"I love you too Healer Weasley" He said in the same vein.

"So future Healer Malfoy" She blushed suddenly and unexpectedly at this, he smiled and held out his hand "Ready to deal with the exes in style?"

"Sure" She grinned as she took his hand and walked towards the tent willing to deal with anyone now that she had the love of her life by her side.


End file.
